Category: Uncategorised

So 64 of 84 total universities in France are on strike. Including to Sorbonne, where Cola studies, but not her program. They’ve been having riots today and maybe the last few days. Apparently some cars are on fire. You know, the French love cars, almost as much as Californians love cars. But they seem to love to burn them as much as they love to drive them.

How are these riots connected to the riots of November? Glad you asked. As you may know, minorities, especially minority youth around the Paris suburbs get hassled and beaten by the police. They also have exceedingly high unemployment rates. All of France has high youth unemployment. The wise leadership decided the riots were not caused by police brutality or racism, but by rap music and over-regulation of workers. Yes, clearly the youth would get hired more often if they could be fired at will for any or no reason. Also, staying in school past 8th grade is a luxury for the upper classes. So they lowered ages for mandatory school attendance and passed something called the CPE.
The CPE says that you can fire folks under 26 for the first few years of them having a new job. What’s to stop businesses from just replacing new 24 year olds every 2 years? Nothing. What protects young workers who want to join or form a union or whose bosses desire sexual favors? Not very much (especially since women, along with minorities, are disproportionately unemployed.) Would a bank want to loan money to somebody with the possibility of losing their job at any moment? Not in France. Are landlords down with this? Not so much. Do folks want to live at home until they’re 26? no.
Nobody is happy with this law. More than 2/3rds of France is against it. but nobody in power wants to admit making a mistake, so it is not repealed yet. Meanwhile, the universities are mostly out on strike and more and more high schools are striking. Kids are throwing molotov cocktails at stuff. The kids in the suburbs in November mostly just burned cars at night. The middle class college kids torch presses, cars and maybe some flics during broad daylight! The youth unrest has spread.
There’s a huuuge protest planned for Saturday… someplace. I kind of want to go, as I am in solidarity with French students (hey, I’m a French student!) and workers, but I don’t want to be in a riot. Also, I don’t know where it’s going to be.
The November riots were mostly in the suburbs (although there were signs of a molotov cocktail a couple of doors down from me) and so were not something threatening my safety. These new batches of riots are in the center areas of town: swanky, posh places. Again, not so much effecting my personal safety. So if you’re prone to worrying, there’s no need on my behalf. Also, for all these riots and burnings, very few people seem to actually get hurt.
I’ve also been on strike from school from monday morning until this afternoon, but that was mostly as I had the flu. I’m better now, although we’ll see how I feel tomorrow after staying up so late. The problem with being sick is that one sleeps so much and at such weird times and then are awake feeling at odd times for the next few days after recovery.
Tags: Paris, Celesteh

Apparently, the Sorbonne and 7 other Universities in France and completely shut down by a strike while 40 more (of the 84 total) universities are partially on strike. I know this because I read it in the news this morning. Apparently, none of the strikers thought to block or even inform the French as a Foreign Language students in their building down the street. So Cola has not been striking. She has not chanted slogans. She has not sat down in traffic and blocked major thoroughfares. She has not piled up furniture in the center of the university to block the path of police. She has not thrown fire extinguishers or other heavy objects down onto the heads of gendarmes. She has not been cleared out of buildings with tears gas. Nor has she declared her solidarity with the sans-papiers. It’s disappointing, really.

The students are upset about something called the CPE. It’s a proposed change to the labor law which would give workers under the age of 26 fewer rights, but still more than they have in the US. Because the US labor law sucks. Who would want it? Anyway, France has something of a reputation for this sort of thing, but this is the first time the Sorbonne has been occupied since 1968. There has been way more youth unrest these last few months than there has been in a mighty long time. It’s a cause for concern, as there wouldn’t be all this ruckus if things were going well.
French students have unions. Not like the student union, where you can go get a cup of coffee, but like unions with meetings and whatnot. American students need unions!
Tags: Paris, Celesteh

I would like recordings of women who are fluent french speakers answering the question “Est-ce que tu es feministe? Pourquoi ou pourquoi pas?” in french, of course. If you want to do it, email me a recording in any for mat to celesteh at gmail dot com.

Je cherche des enregistrements de femmes, pendant qu’elles donnent de la réponse à la question “Est-ce que tu es feministe? Pourquoi ou pourquoi pas?”. En français, si vous plait. Si vous voulez participer, envoyez l’enregistrement à celesteh à gmail point com.
Participants will be thanked in program notes and will get a recording of the finished musical piece
Des femmes vont recevoir mes remerciements et l’enregistrement de le morceau de musique que je vais creer avec ses voix.
Tag: Celesteh

What’s the big deal if the pope has an ipod nano? Isn’t it slightly more pressing that he’s campaigned for Bush, hates the gays and tries to keep condoms away from AIDS ravaged countries? Well, yeah, but my dad did the programming interface for the memory chipped used by the nano. Meaning the Pope is holding something that my dad designed.

whoah
Tag: Celesteh

I’m proud to be an American
Cuz my womb is property
I’ll never forget the men who voted
To make it that way for me

Just saw a video about politics in South Dakota (you too can watch at PBS or via Susie Bright). Well. wow. Here are some choice excerpts for the transcript:

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Napoli says most abortions are performed for what he calls “convenience.” He insists that exceptions can be made for rape or incest under the provision that protects the mother’s life. I asked him for a scenario in which an exception may be invoked.

BILL NAPOLI: A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life.

Digby pretty much says already everything to be said about that: “Certainly, we know that if she wasn’t a virgin, she was asking for it, so she should be punished with forced childbirth. . . .. I suspect many hours have been spent luridly contemplating the brutal, savage rape and sodomy (as bad as it can be) of a religious virgin and how terrible it would be for her. It seems quite clear in his mind. ”
Back to the transcript:

STATE REP. ELAINE ROBERTS (D), SOUTH DAKOTA: We’ve chipped, and chipped, and chipped; now we’re here with this full fledge. What will be next? What will be next?

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Democratic Representative Elaine Roberts is one of South Dakota’s few pro-choice legislators. What’s next, she fears, is a host of measures that regulate women’s private lives.

ELAINE ROBERTS: We already have a law that says that pharmacists by conscience could refuse to fill my prescription for contraceptives. There is already a move from some groups who have worked on this to say that there should be no contraceptives, that sexual intercourse is for the purpose of reproduction.

A return to traditional values

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Much of what she fears as an assault on basic rights Senator Napoli sees as a return to traditional values.

BILL NAPOLI: When I was growing up here in the wild west, if a young man got a girl pregnant out of wedlock, they got married, and the whole darned neighborhood was involved in that wedding. I mean, you just didn’t allow that sort of thing to happen, you know? I mean, they wanted that child to be brought up in a home with two parents, you know, that whole story. And so I happen to believe that can happen again.

So, right, if you have sex, no contraception for you. If you get pregnant and are unmarried, “the whole darned neighborhood” is going to force you to marry the father of your fetus. Is he abusive? Drunk? All wrong for you? Tough! Because, unless you were a virgin and this guy fulfilled Sen Napoli’s darkest fantasies, you HAVE to have this kid and you HAVE to marry this guy. Or will the forced marriage bill make an exception for rape?
Marital rape is illegal in every state in the United States. Not because of a federal law. Not because of a court case. But because incredibly determined activists got the law passed separately in every single state. This is the next logical target of South Dakota, where women are clearly property. And as goes South Dakota, so goes the nation. (Time to cancel that trip to Mt Rushmore.)
Oh and this being a “states rights” issue is clearly bullshit because the first the US Congress is going to do if this gets past the Supreme Court is pass a bunch of laws. First Roe Vs Wade, then Griswold.
And this, my friends, is why I don’t want to return to the US. I miss my friends and a lot of things, but I like freedom too. Freedom means human rights. It means a right to privacy. It means a right to health care.
Tags: Abortion, Celesteh

So if we agree on salary, I’ve got a job. How much should one expect for 19.5 hours/week of web monkeyness in Paris? It’s some ASP and helping people figure stuff out. Part time office geek. Why does nobody list salary ranges on craig’s list? Anyway, if it works out, they might be interested in helping me stay for another year. I explained that I was not alone in France, and they seemed interested in Cola’s skill set and said they could at least give her connections to find a job if not hire her.

Whee! I will soon join the ranks (hopefully) of those who leave their house nearly every day. They want to know how much I can work in the summer. I need to talk to Cola . . ..
I dunno about another year here. On the one hand, I like the friends I’ve made, I can get my dog mailed to me (maybe), I like a secular government and adequate healthcare (for contrast, check out this NYT article about immigrant healthcare in the US. Including legal immigrants, not that it should make any difference whatsoever.). Yeah, it’s nice to live in a country that believes in human rights. But I left my heart in San Francisco. Actually, I think in berkeley. Or maybe it’s my tuba I’m thinking of. Why can’t California be more like France? Or why can’t France be more like California?
Tag: Celesteh

about John Cage and Xenakis

I haven’t been posting here for a while because it was dropping older posts. I sent tech support email to blogger, but they have yet to respond. I just made backup with wget and so I’ll try posting again, but I’ve become tempted to move this blog to celesteh.com and host it with WordPress or DotClear. I suspect the second option has strong bilingual support, which may be handy, as I’d like to do my composer site in 2 or more languages.

So what have I been up to? I’ve decided to make a list of interesting schools worldwide. Right now, I am especially interested in the SF Bay Area, Canada, France, Berlin, London (and the UK) and the Netherlands. I’m taking suggestions for anywhere. (No small towns though. Middletown was too much for me.) Then, come September, I’ll start putting applications together. Then I’ll have lots of lead in, no rush and I’ll make all the deadlines. Then, hopefully a year from now, I’ll have a list of schools that have accepted me and pick the best one.
I should be out right now bar hopping, but I don’t wanna. I have to do publicity for my concert in a week and go put up some flyers. I think I will go around early in the day tomorrow and do it. It’s too crowded right now and I don’t want to try shouting in French at a bartender asking if I can put up a poster. Cola is in London. I’m too wimpy to brave such crowds alone.
I had a REALLY frustrating day on Wednesday and so didn’t do much yesterday because I can get away with being so lazy. Actually, I can’t. There are two people I really actually have to call tomorrow. Really.
I have a job interview on monday. It’s very exciting. I’m pretty happy about it. It requires geeky web experience, fluency in English and some French and the person I’ve met from the company seems to be really cool. It’s an oil company. Well, a company that does research for an oil company. You can have the perfect location, the best coworkers, the best environment and the perfect social consciousness. But you can only have three of those things. (Unless you work for a gay porn site and then you get everything.) Maybe research will reveal that it’s time for biofuel.
Oh and I’ve got an RSS thingee from filckr now, which holds my 200 most recent photos and will send them out via RSS to your aggregator or friends list.
Y’all should come to my concert on March 11 if you are female and in Paris.
Tags: Paris, Celesteh

Anybody got anything good or bad to say about the PhD program at York? They’ve got a new music research centre. Application deadline is 31 March. Trevor Wishart said it looked interesting. He stopped short of recommending it because it’s new and he therefore couldn’t say anything definitive.

It might be rather late for me to apply, since I’m coming from overseas.
What’s the town of York like? It’s got the second most important cathedral in Britain, but I’m guessing it’s not much like New York.
This is my first possible “bright idea” for next year…
Tag: Celesteh